Building a recycling revolution in bedlinen
Posted: 19 April 2021, in News
Our social enterprise WASaBED was born in lockdown and has made steady progress over the last twelve months.
We recycle retired bedlinen into sustainable handmade bespoke Beach Clean Bags. We reduce the amount of retired bedlinen going into landfill by bringing it into the circular economy and reusing it for environmental benefits. Retired bedlinen can also be made into a range of other products, as we’ve found out.
Lockdown meant there was demand for face masks, of which we have made over 1000, plus other great products including Zafus (meditation pillows) and Japanese Hashi Bashi Aprons (Scots – a pinny). These additional products are available in our WASaBED online shop alongside our bespoke handmade totes.
We’ve been developing partnerships with laundry companies to donate end of life clean bed linen to WASaBED. This has gone well and with consultancy support from Zero Waste Scotland we’ve found links into a number of large organisations.
Blythswood are a Scottish charity who have been donating used linen from their community collections to our WASaBED project. Additionally, we’ve had donations from a range of local accommodation providers in the Highlands. To find out how to donate linen head to our website.
WASaBED has also been encouraging local beach cleaning activities, after all the social enterprise was set up to create handmade beach cleaning bags! Situated on the West Coast of Scotland we get a lot of rope and ghost fishing gear washing up on our wee beach. It is a never-ending battle to beat back plastic.
Our plans are also to open a ‘pop-up’ shop in our local GALE Tourist Information Centre in Gairloch. This project has been funded by a Just Enterprise’ Start Up’ grant. The opening of the shop has been put on hold, so we’re looking forward to the end of lockdown so we can open up. Perhaps we’ll see you there later in the year?
#SavingThePlanetOneBagAtAtime
Cory Jones, Founder of WASaBED